VBR Settings Question

[slonocode]

I have been capturing with the following settings.

720x480
avg bitrate 4000kbits/s
max bitrate 8000kbits/s
stereo audio 224

This is with Wintv pvr 250 so the captures are straight to mpg2.

How could I best reduce file size with the least quality sacrifice?
Should I lower avg bitrate?
Should I lower max bitrate?
Will file size be smaller if the max is lower but the avg is the same?


2.5 hours worth of capture(5 tv episodes) with the original settings sometimes fits on one dvd and sometimes does not. So I only need a small tweak to make sure 5 episodes fit on one disc.

Thanks for any help
Slonocode

[andkiich]

IMHO you will want to modify the average bitrate. Use one of the bitrate calculators in the TOOLS section to determine what the bitrate should be for your media size and video length.

Also, since you are talking about TV res captures, you might want to consider getting dropping your resolution to 352x480. You will be able to get more time(~4hrs) on the same DVD with a lower bitrate and the quality will not suffer all that much.

[ZippyP.]

The average is the only one that will affect file size, although all three settings(min,max avg) will affect the quality. Minimum should always be very near to zero, I use 300 so my player doesn't freeze. You can drop your average as low as you like but you should do some testing as quality will be droppping as well. How low you go is personal choice. Like andkiich said, if you drop your resolution you can lower the bitrate considerably. You probably won't notice much loss in quality either, considering your source is a capture played back on a TV.

[slonocode]

Thanks for the replies.
I will experiment with the avg bitrate. I only need to save about 300MB per 2.5 hours worth of capture so it shouldn't affect quality very much(I hope).

I don't know if this is true or not but I think I recall reading that captures at HALF D1 resolution can tend to look bad on larger or big screen TV's.

Either way I'm very happy with the quality and as long as I can get 2.5 hours per DVD I feel pretty good about things.

Thanks again
Slonocode

[ZippyP.]

Either way I'm very happy with the quality and as long as I can get 2.5 hours per DVD I feel pretty good about things.

Then that's really all that matters!